How This Millennial Entrepreneur Started A Successful Business After Attending A Sorority Party

Dani Egna, founder and CEO of Inked by Dani, went from selling her temporary tattoos in sorority houses on a college campus to being picked up by retailer Brandy Melville. The company is redefining temporary tattoos into a whole new world of upscale, wearable art.

Dani Egna, founder and CEO of Inked by Dani designing her next temporary tattoo.

Inked by Dani

The idea for the product began while Egna and her friends were in college. “We had tons of different theme parties every night,” she laughs. “It was different themes with different costumes. My friends said to me ‘you are the artist, you love drawing, cover us in some cool designs.’” With liquid eyeliner, she covered her friends in hand-drawn designs. With overwhelming feedback and requests on where to purchase the designs, Egna experienced her aha moment.

As she researched the market, she came to find that many temporary tattoo companies targeted children with their different designs. For example, the popular kid shows from Disney or Nickelodeon. “I thought I could do something completely unique here,” she explains, “and create chic temporary tattoos with an art-driven aesthetic unlike anything else that was available on the market. Of course, there are tons of temporary tattoos saleable but there really wasn't any other tattoo company that was creating elevated, sophisticated tattoos…It felt like a completely perfect pivot where I could completely utilize all my fine arts training and pretty much use tattoos almost as a new medium for my art to create a really innovative brand.”

Egna had always been artistic. In high school, she began selling her art and photos to local galleries, art shows and stores where she’d earn a commission off of her work. She eventually used all that money and what she earned in college to fund the launch of the brand. She and her freshman year roommate and best friend started the company together. The initial collection consisted of 10 designs. They took the designs and sold them at the sorority houses and hosted pop-up trunk shows.

Dani Egna, founder and CEO of Inked by Dani, showing off her temporary tattoos at a trade show.

Inked by Dani

“Things started to spread through word of mouth,” she smiles. “We started growing the following on Instagram and I was trying to grow our presence online through all sorts of social media platforms; everything that was super visual and such an organic platform for us. I was hustling all day, cold calling, sending samples to people, a million and one emails and just really trying to open up as many opportunities as I could. We actually ended up landing a few pretty big retailers while I was still in college.”

The product is sold at over 10,000 retail locations including Target, Ulta, Forever 21 and Spencer's. In addition, Inked has collaborated with brands such as Saks, Nylon, Live Nation and Bandier.

Once Egna and her roommate graduated, Egna moved back to New York City while her partner stayed in Los Angeles. At that moment, Egna built out the brand. It was an adjustment for her when she took over the company. She had to learn all aspects of running a business. What she struggled with most was the ability to delegate.

“Starting off,” Egna shares, “I definitely was like ‘I can do everything. I need to do everything.’ There are so many hats to wear and so many things to do day to day, that it's been a task because I'm such a perfectionist. But as you grow, you have to learn to become a leader. That's been a huge transition for me to learn to grow the team and delegate where necessary; that's going to allow me to really focus on my priorities, grow the business and to build out an amazing team of people.”

Dani Egna, founder and CEO of Inked by Dani, discussing an upcoming design with one of her team members.

Inked by Dani

With each pivot, Egna focuses on these essential steps to assist in the expansion of her brand:

Research your competitors and other successful brands in the field. Really determine how you can make your product stand out. Where's that gap in the market that your product can really fill.

Don’t underestimate the power of great product packaging and branding. It's so important to invest in what that customer experiences, how they interact with the products. The packaging is just as important as the actual product itself.

“Every successful business has got to be a great idea,” Egna concludes. “You got to put a lot of hard work into it and there's got to be a little luck along the way. I hope to just sort of show that you can build something that is really your dream and kind of pulling from a bunch of different industries, finding what that means, what that hole in the market is and really capitalize on that.”